The Saudi Central Bank, also known as the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), announced on its website that it has granted permits to two companies to provide open banking solutions, bringing the total number of permitted Fintech companies operating under its Regulatory Sandbox to 38.
The companies, “Lean Technologies” and “Mod5r,” are the latest to get approval from SAMA to operate legally in Saudi Arabia.
This step completes “a series of actions undertaken to conquer a stack of strategic objectives including activating SAMA’s sandbox environment role to the realization of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 goals through the Financial Sector Development Program (FSDP),” SAMA said in the announcement.
The Financial Sector Development Program was launched in 2017 in order to enable financial institutions to support the growth of the private sector, develop an advanced capital market and to boost and enable financial planning.
SAMA says it is currently working alongside other participants in the financial sector including banks and Fintech companies on developing and implementing “an integrated high standard network to carry on Open Banking Solutions in the Kingdom with the most innovative and best practices within a predefined timetable.”
